The lawmaker representing Oyo South senatorial district in The Senate, Sen. Adesoji Akanbi has lent his voice to the raging debate about election funding.
President Muhammadu Buhari had, in a letter to the National Assembly on Tuesday, requested a total virement of N228.8bn, largely allocated to new projects “inserted” in the 2018 budget by the National Assembly to offset part of the proposed cost of funding the 2019 general elections.
Election funding is to gulp N242.4bn. The total cost for the inserted projects in the 2018 budget is N578.3bn.
However, the President wants the N228.8bn vired from the money, an indication that many of the projects would suffer the fate of lack of funding and execution.
Akanbi, who was a member of the House of Representatives, said other options might be considered by the lawmakers.
According to him: “There must be other ways to fund the elections than reducing what the National Assembly budgeted for projects.
“We all know the importance of those projects. Most of the projects are infrastructural in nature and spending on them will create employment and enhance the growth of our economy.”